In February 2014, Canada terminated a funding agreement with Miftah. According to Miftah, this followed Hanan Ashrawi’s attack against Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird’s for stating that the Palestinians are making a “huge mistake” by going to the ICC. Ashrawi said, “Israel is enabled by apologists like John Baird to persist with the support of self-appointed advocates who become complicit in these war crimes,” and alleged that “Canada is indulging in political blackmail at the expense of our civil society institutions.”

Activities

Hanan Ashrawi, founder and Chair of the MIFTAH Board of Directors, addressed the virulent 2001 UN Durban Conference, claiming to represent the Palestinian people, which she called a “nation in captivity held hostage to an ongoing Nakba, as the most intricate and pervasive expression of persistent colonialism, apartheid, racism, and victimization.”

In 2015, the Canadian government pulled funding for a Miftah project after the group failed to publicize that funding had come from the government.

BDS

Publishes articles that advocate for BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel, alleging that “the BDS campaign calls for justice first, framing the conflict in terms of colonization, oppression and denial of the basic human rights of the Palestinian people.”

Published a list of Israeli products and companies, located both in Israel and abroad, for individuals to boycott in order “to force foreign governments, corporations, and individuals to abandon their support of Israel vies-a-vie threats to the economic interests.” The document compares Israel to Apartheid South Africa.

Shared an article about the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (formerly the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation), in which Israel is compared to the Ku Klux Klan, and calls for an end to Israel’s “colonial/apartheid policy.”

Terrorism

In a January 2017 interview for Deutsche Welle, founder and chair of the Miftah board of directors Hanan Ashrawi claimed that Palestinian “attacks and their perpetrators” (as described by the interviewer, Tim Sebastian), “are seen by the people as resistance. And you cannot somehow adopt the language of either the international community or the occupier by describing anybody who resists as terrorist (sic)” (3:20).

Described Wafa Idrees, one of the first female Palestinian suicide bombers, as “the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause.” Idrees detonated herself on January 27, 2002, killing 81 year-old Pinhas Takatli and wounding another 150 Israeli civilians. She is described as one of the “several young women” who “decided to join the ranks of the resistance movement.

MIFTAH posted an article claiming that medieval blood libels "are based on real rituals and are not false as they claim." MIFTAHs funders include the EU, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Norway, National Endowment for Democracy (US) and International Republic Institute (US).

The international prominence of Miftahs leaders and heavy networking with diplomats, civil society institutions as well as the media has spread its reports far. Despite its universal goals, the organization has a highly partisan political agenda.